Living Proof
by ilovetvalot
Summary: After a tragic incident, Hotch is the only one with an inkling how she feels. JJ/Hotch.


**Living Proof**

Walking into the sterile hospital room, Hotch's nose tingled, twitching uncontrollably. That antiseptic smell still had the ability to nauseate him after all these years. Pausing in the doorway, he avoided looking at the still body huddled in the bed, his eyes drawn to the bunched blue blanket draped over the side rail. Damn it! History had repeated itself. Only this time, he knew it wasn't the mother he'd loved beyond comprehension lying there bruised and battered mere feet away from him. No. This time it was his colleague...at least officially. In his heart, she was far more, he knew. JJ had always been far more to him than anything that could be defined by a simple word.

Slipping quietly across the room, he slid into the bright yellow plastic visitor's chair. _'Why were these seats always such an eyesore?' _he asked himself in an effort to distract his thoughts from the woman slumbering in front of him. He couldn't focus there yet. He wasn't ready to face what he knew he'd see. Not yet. He'd barely passed the point where he was able to form coherent sentences again, that phone call of six hour prior having robbed him of his sanity for a few stolen moments in time. Thank God that Dave had happened to drop by. It was only because of the older profiler that he had made it to the hospital intact.

Staring over her bed at the parted lime green drapes, he focused on the seam's frayed edges. How the hell had this happened? How had none of them recognized the warning signs for what they were? Hell, of everyone, shouldn't he have been the one to see it first? He'd fucking lived the nightmare that had been JJ's life for the past year.

Swallowing hard, he reminded himself to be grateful. She'd lived through her ordeal. Her son was young, barely a year and a half old. He shouldn't remember the trauma of this horrific night. Her assailant was dead, a clean justified kill at her capable hands...once she'd managed to gain her weapon. Luckier than his own wonderful mother had been. She'd saved him and Sean from their father's wrath. But his sire's fists had stolen her fragile life. But not before she'd save theirs.

Biting his lower lip with enough force to make his eyes water, he allowed the pain to drag him back to the present. It served no purpose to dwell in recollections of the past; the outcome never changed.

Finally forcing his eyes to the woman on the bed, he started with her sheet-draped legs. They were curled protectively against her chest, almost in the fetal position as if waiting for another blow to arrive unexpectedly. Damn, how long had she slept like that? Poised for fight or flight? He noticed that she held a pillow tucked protectively to her chest and imagined it was serving as a stand-in for her son. How many nights had his own mother held him and Sean tucked against her chest just like that. Tens? Hundreds? Probably thousands.

Steeling himself as he willed his eyes to JJ's face, he couldn't contain the involuntary grimace as he surveyed the damage William LaMontagne had inflicted before his death. Still swollen and purpling, the bruise against her right cheekbone looked the worst. And he knew when they flipped on the bright fluorescent lights inside the dim hospital room, those bruises would look positively garish. But that mark would fade given the passage of time. Unlike the stitched skin on her left cheek where her attacker's knife had sliced a clean strip of her ivory skin. No, that scar would remain. Permanently. Indefinitely. A constant reminder of the night she'd fought for her and her son's life.

As far as he was concerned, it was a battle scar, forever to remind him of her incredible courage in the face of overwhelmingly unfair odds. Sadly, somehow, he doubted JJ would ever see it the same way. He doubted she'd ever look at anything the same way again. How could she? Her trust had been violated just as surely as her body had. No one came through that unscathed. He ought to know.

It took him a moment to realize that her blue eyes were staring back at him, her gaze flat, the sparkle that had made her so unique gone. The hopeful, compassionate light that usually shone from their depths had been replaced by the dull, harsh reality of her situation.

Leaning forward, Hotch touched her hand careful, keeping his caress light. "Hey, sweetheart," he whispered, the endearment slipping out before he could call it back.

"Hotch?" she breathed as she blinked, her voice raw from screaming pleas for mercy earlier in the night.

"Uh huh," he nodded, scooting his chair a little closer to the bed, the legs scraping unforgivingly against the tiled floor. Watching her wince at the sound, he whispered, his apology deep, "I'm sorry."

"H-henry?" JJ asked uncertainly, glancing around the room, searching as if hoping her son would magically appear.

"He's fine," Hotch soothed, rubbing her chilled hand lightly, not adding any pressure to his touch. "The doctors have checked him out and he's been pronounced perfectly healthy. He's in the waiting room with Rossi and Garcia. Want me to go get him?"

"No," JJ replied, her voice hoarse, the protest sliding off her tongue. "Not yet," she whispered shakily, sinking her teeth into her lower lip as she seemed to bite back a sob. "How am I gonna explain this to him?"

"You've got a long time before you need to worry about explaining anything at all to him," Hotch said softly, the chubby face of her son floating through his mind, the little boy's smiles filling his thoughts.

"I can't even make sense of it myself, Hotch," JJ said tremulously. "I killed him. I killed my fiancée," she said softly, quietly horrified, trying to tuck the sheet closer.

"You saved your son and yourself," Hotch countered firmly, his hand tightening against hers. "You did what you had to do to make it out of that house alive," he continued, watching as her throat worked. "How long had this been going on, JJ? How long had he been abusing you?"

Closing her eyes as a wave of shame crashed against her, JJ felt her cheeks burning underneath the pain. "Longer than I ever should have allowed it to. If I'd been brave enough to leave him, he'd still be alive."

And probably torturing you. That's what he wanted to say. Instead, Hotch shook his head. "You can't play that game with yourself, JJ. You did what had to be done."

Licking her dry, cracked lips, JJ shook her head forlornly, her matted hair catching against the pillowcase. "He'd lost his job six months ago. Cutbacks in the department. He was working for a security firm as an underpaid guard and he'd been steadily drinking more."

Nodding as he listened to the all too familiar story, her need to explain filling her tone, Hotch mentally groaned. Damn, he could have written this himself, it was so recognizable.

"Anyway, I think the first time he hit me was about four months ago. Up until then, it had remained verbal...with the occasional rough handling." Taking a breath, JJ tried to quell a shudder as she whispered, sighing, "I thought I could handle it. I kept telling myself that he'd get better. And, I know it's trite, but he was always so genuinely sorry."

Yeah, drunks always were, he thought bitterly. Right up until they weren't sorry anymore. "You aren't the first person that's made that mistake, JJ," Hotch murmured, remembering his mother's forgiving arms holding his father when he'd sob those drunken tears of his.

"T-T-tonight, though...he went after the baby. Henry'd been up all night with an ear infection and he was just so cranky. Will...he was trying to sleep off his latest hangover and Henry woke him up. When I saw that fist flying toward my baby...I snapped. I got between them...and he was so enraged. Almost inhuman. I knew he was going to kill me. And I knew that I couldn't let that happen to Henry. So, I dove for my gun...and then," she whimpered, choking up, the words no longer able to come out of her swollen throat.

"I know what happened next, JJ," Hotch said softly, securely wrapping his hand around hers, anchoring his fingers into hers. "There's no question that it was self defense."

"That doesn't help," JJ whispered, her voice cracking as she tried to pull up, only to feel his hand pushing her shoulder gently down.

"No, I don't imagine it does," Hotch admitted, his hand easing off her shoulder as she settled again. "But it will in time."

"Time," JJ snorted, wiping roughly at her nose. "I can't think past this moment. I don't know how to go on from here, Hotch."

"You rely on the people that love you. That want what's best for you and Henry. You let us take the weight of the world on our shoulders for awhile," Hotch advised steadily, his thumb stroking against her smooth hand. "And you find a way to come to terms with the fact that you might be beaten, but you're far from broken. And there's a huge difference between the two."

"You sure about that?" JJ asked, faintly disbelieving as she offered him a sidelong glance.

"JJ, look at me," Hotch urged softly, willing her eyes to meet his. Patiently waiting until he had her full attention, he said slowly and with more conviction that he'd ever shown any unsub or jury panel, "I'm your living proof."

_**finis**_


End file.
